Permission to Reprint VALS™ Information

(Please allow up to 30 days for processing.)

The VALS™ team frequently receives requests to reprint information about VALS in books, newsletters, or other publications. VALS materials are copyrighted and are unavailable for use without express written permission from Strategic Business Insights (SBI). We are happy to grant this permission on a case-by-case basis. To obtain permission, you must:

Return the completed permission form to SBI with the following materials:

The text discussing VALS. If you plan to reprint VALS materials in a chapter of a book, please send a copy of the entire chapter in a Word document so that track changes can serve for editing. If you plan to reprint VALS materials in a newsletter, please include a copy of the entire newsletter.

Graphics, tables, or charts relating to VALS that will appear in your publication.

SBI will check your text and graphics for accuracy, send any necessary corrections to you, and return the permission form to you signed by a VALS team member (after submitted revisions have been approved and the processing-fee payment has been received). (Please allow up to 30 days for processing.) Once you receive the signed permission form from us, you may use the VALS materials (incorporating any changes or corrections made by SBI) in your publication.

If your request includes electronic publishing, the link must be active.

Requests that include translations, permission to reprint in other languages, and permission to distribute in countries other than the United States or Canada must include:

To receive an accurate VALS Type: By design, the questions are for use by people whose first language is American English. If you are not a citizen of the United States or Canada, residency should be for enough time to know the culture and its idioms. If you do not meet these conditions, your VALS type will not be accurate.

SBI will approve text and graphics for accuracy before publication.

When the final publication is available, you will send a copy of it to SBI for our records.

The permission to reprint pertains to that specific request only. If you want to use the material for subsequent editions, you must reapply for permission.

VALS materials are copyrighted and are unavailable for use without express written permission from SBI.

VALS™ Fact Sheet

Before sending us the proposed text of your publication, please check your facts against the following list. It includes several important details about VALS that people frequently question or misunderstand.

VALS, originally developed by SRI International (a nonprofit research organization in Menlo Park, California), is now owned and operated by Strategic Business Insights (SBI).

Every nation includes people who are more or less impulsive or more or less deliberate, preferring the familiar to the novel; the same is true for other characteristics such as adherence to traditional values, me-first attitudes, and reliance on self. These attitudes connect to a broad range of consumer behaviors such as brand preferences, the adoption of new products, and leadership qualities. VALS is a proprietary psychometric method that measures these and other predictive attitudes—in conjunction with behaviors and demographics.

The VALS battery of attitude items—the VALS questionnaire—is based on a multi-million-dollar research and development effort. Between 1987 and 1989, SRI International conducted several large national consumer surveys to identify the psychological traits and key demographics that have a strong correlation with a large range of consumer preferences about products, activities, and media. The current VALS questionnaire is the fourth version based on this kind of extensive empirical research. VALS is now wholly owned and operated by SBI.

Clients often ask how we can know about product, service, and activity preferences from the short VALS questionnaire. The answer is that these questions are not the only ones that we ask. The VALS questionnaire on our website is our US VALS–location battery. Its purpose is to identify a person's VALS type. We gather consumer product, service, and activity data by integrating the VALS questionnaire into larger custom or syndicated questionnaires. For example, VALS integrates into SBI's Consumer Financial Decisions' MacroMonitor survey to provide a source of detailed financial behaviors and attitudes by VALS types. VALS integrates in various client-specific questionnaires and in GfK MRI's Survey of the American Consumer.

VALS is not an acronym; VALS abbreviates nothing. The first VALS system was based on social values, and at the time, VALS was an acronym for Values and Lifestyles. SBI dropped Values and Lifestyles in 1990 but retained the VALS brand.